A new Amazon patent stops you from checking prices online while you shop in a physical store

Showrooming is when you visit a physical store to look at an item, but buy it cheaper online.Steven Saphore/Reuters

Amazon has been granted a patent designed to stop you from visiting a shop to buy something, but then looking for a cheaper version online while you're there.

The patent, which we first saw via The Verge, would essentially try and intercept you if you made a price comparison search using the shop's WiFi. It outlines a way that a retailer could intercept and analyse a network request, like a search term or URL.

If the retailer works out that you're probably looking at a competitor's site, it can try and persuade you back with a store coupon, show you that the item's immediately available in-store, or offer a discounted version of the item.

As Amazon puts it in its patent: "[A] negative scenario may exist for a physical store retailer when a consumer evaluates items at the physical store, leverages physical store sales representatives, and then reviews pricing information online in order to purchase the same item from an online retailer.

"The physical store retailer pays for floor space, sales representative time, product inventory management, and other costs while not being able to complete a sales transaction."

And Amazon also doesn't have that many physical shops itself — so why would it worry about price comparisons with competitors?

It's instead more likely that the patent is a defensive move against retailers. Now, retailers can't take measures to stop you from logging into their WiFi and looking for their products more cheaply online on Amazon.